A map of the Lancashire resort, labelled in Russian, has come to light and has been seized upon as evidence of a cunning Cold War plan to attack Britain by landing the Red Army on Blackpool Pleasure Beach. A second wave of troops would have come ashore at Cleethorpes, on Humberside, and the Soviets would have sliced Britain in half within 24 hours.

The conspiracy is to be revealed in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Balalaikas in Blackpool, this month.

But the Russian map may not be the extraordinary document that it seems.

According to Blackpudlians there is another explanation for the map, on which the seaside town’s key landmarks are identified in Cyrillic script. They include the railway, bus and tram stations, the airport, the piers and beaches and, of course, Blackpool Tower, which would apparently have become an observation post and communications mast.

Experts on the history of Blackpool illuminations say that the map was the work not of the Kremlin but of Harry Porter, the council’s press officer at the time.

The late Mr Porter is remembered as an ingenious public-relations man, an early spin-doctor whose main task every year was to generate coverage for the switching-on of the Blackpool Illuminations.

At the height of the Cold War he hit upon the idea of inviting Jacob Malik, the Soviet Ambassador, to switch on the lights. It was September 1955. Khrushchev was in power, the Warsaw Pact had just been signed and Burgess and Maclean were missing but soon to surface in Moscow. A Soviet switch-on would be controversial and headline-grabbing.

The Russians loved the idea and sent a large delegation. To help them to find their way around, Mr Porter commissioned a map which clearly marked the local landmarks, main streets and transport facilities. David Graham, a Blackpool journalist, has a copy of Mr Porter’s 1955 map.

He said: “I’ve seen the original. It was handed out to journalists and VIPs in an official pack in September 1955 which was meant to be informative and an assistance to Russian visitors who had never been to Blackpool before, and probably never returned.”

A spokesman for Blackpool Tourism said: “The Russians brought a big party of press and military attachés to what was to be a big seaside knees-up. This map was produced for them and one must have been taken back to Russia. It has reappeared years later and is now being touted as an invasion plan. If that is the case, Blackpool council were Soviet collaborators.”

The BBC claims that the Blackpool map is marked “Secret” and is one of 200 detailed maps of British cities, ports and railheads produced by the Soviets between 1964 and 1988. It is said to have been drawn in 1974. But the map marks Stanley Park as an airport, which it was in 1955. By the mid-1970s it was Blackpool Zoo.

A BBC spokesman said: “The map was one in a series of over 200 prepared by the Russians of major British cities, ports and railheads between 1964 and 1988. The director of tourism for Blackpool was a contributor to the programme and didn’t raise any concerns about the map’s authenticity.”

HIGH LIGHTS

• Blackpool, on the Fylde Coast in Lancashire, has a population of 153,500
• It is the most popular tourist destination in Britain after London, attracting more than 16 million visitors a year
• The Blackpool illuminations began as an eight-lamp display in 1879 and were hailed as artificial sunshine
• There are now one million lamps, which will cost £2.4 million to keep burning for the 66-night display this year
• There are 10,000 bulbs in Blackpool Tower
• Overseas visitors are warned that damp can cause sinus problems, flu and rheumatism
• Six miles of beaches are worked by 228 donkeys giving rides in the summer
• Blackpool plays host to the largest annual Elvis convention in Europe

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